After voting to condemn, demolish and remove four of a possible five local properties, Iola Council members wondered at their meeting Monday night if there might be a better way to address Iola’s deteriorating housing stock.
“Is there a way we could be proactive instead of reactive?” Councilman Nich Lohman asked.
In reviewing that one home’s utilities had been disconnected since 1988, Councilman Josiah D’Albini remarked, “That’s longer than I’ve been alive.”
The trouble with trying to detect homes in advance of decay is that oftentimes a home’s exterior belies its interior, said Code Enforcement Office Gregg Hutton.
“A house with pretty blue vinyl siding may be the only thing it has going for it,” he said.
“Once inside, it’s a different story.”
Typically, it’s only when a house becomes a blight to the neighborhood and neighbors complain does Hutton begin to investigate. In many cases the house can be saved. Getting the owners to follow through, however, is a different matter.
It’s not uncommon for city leaders to give the owners multiple opportunities to repair the homes but never do.
And many of the homes that have seen better days frequently change hands with people thinking they’ve got “a steal” of a home, but never follow through with their renovation.
Iola Council members are hoping Jesse Bettinger will be different.
Bettinger attended Monday’s meeting to protest the city’s recommendation that a home he owns at 19 S. Ohio be condemned.
Though he’s done nothing to repair the vacant home in the year he’s owned it, the threat of having it condemned seems to have spurred the young man, a welder by trade, to fix it up. By Bettinger’s estimation the roof, floors and windows are good, but from the outside, “she’s ugly.”
Bettinger said the house needs siding and a new porch to spruce up the exterior.
Inside, he said he needs “to fix the rafters.” The house is gutted and also in need of new electrical wiring, plumbing, and drywall.
Bettinger told Council members that although he’s on the road a lot as a boilermaker, he estimated he could get a good start on the repairs in a year’s time.
Hutton didn’t share Bettinger’s confidence.
